I don’t think humanity is going to continue to agree to what is government approved torturing of people who have already undergone trauma. I don’t think humanity wants to be inhumane. So eventually those people who have altered states of consciousness and unusual sensory experiences won’t be subjected to a forced psychiatric regime, by the fearful public, who if they were better would never approve of such things as ECT and forced drugging.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Psychiatrists MUST tell their patients of harmful effects of withdrawing from psychiatric drugs too rapidly

THIS MUST BE MANDATORY!

It has come
to my attention that psychiatrists STILL do not tell their patients that
there is a need to withdraw slowly from major tranquilisers/ neuroleptics/
‘anti-psychotics’.

This is a
breach of ‘informed consent’. Not giving this information to a patient, means a
person can be put through unnecessary suffering, which can be very
dangerous, even deadly. This suffering could be alleviated, if they were informed to
withdraw slowly, and, in ideal circumstances, aided and helped by a
psychiatrist or GP in doing this.

People who may stop taking psych drugs for very good reasons.
Quite often people don’t want to take them forever, because of the horrific
debilitating side-effects, and, because they don't really do what psychiatrists claim they should be doing.

People
often get told by psychiatrists that they have to take neuroleptics forever.
This is not reasonable, especially when there are so many side-effects, when
important social functions such as driving, reading, sex function, conversation and operating machinery are
hampered. Especially when there is Tardive Dyskinesia, or akinesia emerging,
and this harm caused by the drug is dismissed or ignored by the treating
psychiatrist… what is a person to do? People as young as 23 complain of feeling
like they have Alzheimer’s on these drugs. I felt that way myself, until I came
off them. I was sure my brains had eroded. No, it was the neuroleptic.
There’s also those 25 years that get torn from the lives of people on a
regimen of neuroleptics. Read enough and you’ll know all this, and that you
need to come off psych drugs slowly. But if your sight is blurring because of
the drugs and your thoughts are clouded and you’re chronically fatigued, then
how are you going to do that?

I’ve seen over a hundred psychiatrists in a 14 year period and none of
them informed me of the horrific withdrawal effects of neuroleptics. Yet
psychiatrists do know to withdraw people slowly from one neuroleptic before
getting a person to take another, or they should.

All
psychiatric, medical, clinical psychology, mental health and psychiatric drug
related websites should include something similar about slow withdrawal from drugs/
harm reduction.

Psychiatrists
should be informing all patients about drug related harm reduction. Australia
has got to make this mandatory for psychiatrists to do.

Hospitals
have systems in place for harm reduction for stimulant use.

It is
ridiculous that these hard drugs, which are major tranquilisers, have for so
long been written off in documents by ‘Mental Health’ organisations as not
having harmful withdrawal effects. It is ridiculous that these withdrawal
effects are seen as ‘symptoms of psychosis’. They are NOT.

I came off
Solian, from 200mg to nothing and my whole face and body twitched as parts of
me came back to life. I had a headache that lasted 2 weeks. At that time, 2009,
I didn’t know you were meant to come of these drugs slowly, but I’d been
medicalised by psychiatry since 1998!

It has
taken me 2 years, after slow reduction from Zuclopenthixol, to get my emotions
to stabilise and the Tourette’s caused by this drug to fade. I have had a lot
of support from friends, Intervoice, my tafe, colleagues and my partner, that
allow discussions of what had other years been denied.

I think
this INFORMING OF PATIENTS is essential and must be made MANDATORY. I think everyone
could agree to that, in the very least of things that need to be done, to stop
psychiatric abuse, that government could put some legislation in to make
certain that this occurs.

There are
documents that have said this pressure on people’s minds/bodies, of quickly
withdrawing, has been a factor in many horrific shootings by youth, that have
happened in the USA.

Certainly
drug/alcohol rehabilitation services are well-studied in how to safely withdraw
from other hard drugs.

So, please, see that this, is done. Make it mandatory for psychiatrists
to inform people to withdraw slowly, never quickly, and to do so under their
supervision, so that tablets are not quartered in a way that is unsafe. I don’t
want to see another person harmed unnecessarily by withdrawing too quickly from
drugs.

(If you are
attempting to do this, ask, remind and let your psychiatrist know why you need
to reduce your harmful drug. Do not talk of stopping the drug. Just talk about
reducing it. Then they are more likely to give you a prescription of a smaller
pill, I’ve found. If they refuse, keep asking, get back up, books, a lawyer, or an understanding friend.)

As an
individual please make enough conversation happen to grant MANDATORY HARM
REDUCTION INFORMATION TO BE GIVEN, BY ALL PSYCHIATRISTS IN REGARDS TO
PSYCHIATRIC DRUG WITHDRAWAL, TO THEIR PATIENTS. And please feel free to write emails
to RANZCP and the AMA letting them know why this must be made
mandatory.

1 comment:

Great comment Initially NO, concise and very well put and backed up by personal experience! As well as writing emails to RANZCP and the AMA letting them know why this must be made mandatory; ask for voters to email their sitting Senators and MHR's to force these psychiatrists and medical professionals to abide this sensible approach (see policy http://www.glennfloyd.org/ )or they will be charged with criminal negligence!Go WellGlenn